Loopy Loops
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: Sayo doesn't think anything strange at first, but things do seem very oddly planned out. In the meantime, Mirei gets and more frustrated.
1. 1

**A/N:** Here you go Aiko (Aiko Isari)! Plot escaped me, hence the title. :D And congrats for third place in the Odaiba Memorial Competition 2015-2016.

Also written for

All:

Becoming the Tamer King Challenge, Training Peak – write a drabblechap  
Diversity Writing Challenge, c20 - write about gaining an understanding for something

Just the final chapter:  
The Materia Challenge, barrier1 (drabblechap), seal1 (last chapter), enemyaway1 (random letter – f – to be absent)  
Ultimate Sleuth Challenge, Ch 2 event 9 - write the final chapter of a multichap

* * *

 **Loopy Loops**

 **1.**

She remembers being young and naïve: a Tamer like all the rest and trying to reach the top…except she'd never been like all the others, had she?

She still doesn't know what about her made them flag her file. Maybe she's a science lab baby but that's a dreary thought and it doesn't even matter, because she remembers barely anything until the Normal Tamers Tournament that Grimmon crashes.

Not that it's particularly clear at the time. First it's the digimon acting weird on their training grounds. Then the figure in the red cloak hijacking the introductions - and Chief Glare and Koh are more than happy to pretend they've never met her before and she lets them because she doesn't know any better at the time.

And then there's the mess with the gates that puts a stopper on the tournaments - after she's got a pretty trophy to her name, of course.

Coincidence, she thinks at the time.

Not, she knows now. Definitely not.


	2. 2

**Loopy Loops**

 **2.**

Like a good little toy soldier who thinks she's a free Tamer bird, she completes her missions and puts pretty smiley faces where the older and more experienced (and more disillusions, she understands later on) put little tick marks instead. She's not quite there yet. She doesn't know much about the world because she's grown up in Tamer house in DarkMOON for as long as she can remember (and never mind she can't remember much at all) but she's more than willing to help out for her home and more than happy to explore the world in the process.

She doesn't wonder why the rest of her teammates can't handle the areas she's dispatched to. She doesn't wonder why she has to save Barone and Gutts and Ponch in Drain Tunnel when they're all at the same Tamer level and should be around the same strength, because so are Newton and Dorothy and they've been sent off to other areas that are probably equally dangerous and maybe they're just due for a rank promotion.


	3. 3

**Loopy Loops**  
 **3.**

She's not sent to save Newton's hide again, which she's grateful for because Ponch is still grating on her nerves. She's also a little vexed at Newton because it's his fault she had to face Koh in the finals – and he's not bad or anything, but anyone who makes her feel bad about winning against them is not someone she wants to have to face in the first place.

She's more vexed at Newton when she meets up with Koh again, because apparently things have gone pear-shaped in SunSHINE as well and now they have to work together and he keeps on deferring to her because she beat him.

And because she did beat him, and directly too, and there's no loophole to slither out from.


	4. 4

**Loopy Loops**  
 **4.**

She wonders how she's missed Chief Julia and her ChaosDukemon going bonkers. And when it started. Maybe it's the extravagant gift of a Farm that suddenly seems more ominous than generous – because why would a Normal Tamer who would only leave DarkMOON under extraneous circumstances need a farm to raise digimon. The Tamer Home had space for three and that was the norm, and how many she'd had before the farm and Phascomon.

But even after she takes down the pair, even after she's tracked own Grimmon to Chaos Brain and kicked its behind enough times to make sure it won't be coming back in the near future, she doesn't think to be suspicious of the Phascomon. The farm, yes, but she can buy her own farm now and a bigger one to boot. And possibly it was just to prepare for this point: make sure she's not limited to three digimon, and that they're as strong as can be to take care of their little pest problem that was apparently too big for even the chiefs to handle.

But she does wonder what makes her so special?

Though she doesn't wander how they knew.


	5. 5

**Loopy Loops**  
 **5.**

She gets all the toughest quests now, because she's at the top of the food chain and the new chief in everything but official titles. She's not sure who handles the official titles. She's also not sure who handles the quests, because they're not all ones she delegates to the other ranks. Like the Demon Lords that are causing trouble over something or other.

Of course, she has to handle that one, because no-one else has multiple Mega digimon to kick their behinds with.

She doesn't think that this quest's anything special. She saved CITY, after all, and the world server. A few digimon calling themselves lords and causing trouble shouldn't be a big deal.

But they are. And she is nowhere near ready to find out how much.

She finds out anyway.


	6. 6

**Loopy Loops**  
 **6.**

The Demon Lords have all the answers, including answers to questions she doesn't even know she has. And it makes her angry, especially when they refuse to give them up without a fight. But she manages. Even if she loses most of her remaining megas in a process and ain't that a shock? Because nothing except Grimmon should have been capable of handling them, but the demon lords gang up and reduce her six to just one.

But she wins, in the end, just like they apparently expected she would, and she can't confess herself too pleased with _that_ either because it's just another pin in the cushion.

She's not Sayo, Tamer extraordinaire. She's not even Sayo, period.

And dear little Phascomon has been spying on her the whole time.


	7. 7

**Loopy Loops**  
 **7.**

She's royally pissed after the quest with the demon lords. She doesn't bother going back to CITY, because there's nothing waiting there anyway. She's apparently passed – passed a test she never even knew she was doing. And now it's time for her to do the job they've been grooming her for and she want to say "hell no" and go back on her merry way, but it's not an entirely feasible endeavour.

Koh comes after her. Big mistake. She blows up at him, then feels guilty later on because that's just the sort of guy Koh is.

Except Koh doesn't exist. None of this exists.

Suddenly, she's sick of this place, and she's more than happy to leave.


	8. 8

**Loopy Loops**  
 **8.**

Leaving turns out to be a big mistake. But she's got no way of knowing it until it's too late…and, really, that's _why_ it's such a big mistake.

There's a woman called Mirei Mikagura who's waiting in the interim between worlds (which probably has a fancy name but she can't bring herself to care), and that's apparently her. Of course, this meeting between worlds only happens when it's too late to do a damn thing with the knowledge.

Because she's already set her future self up for the same outcome.

It's a cycle they can't seem to get out of.


	9. 9

**Loopy Loops**  
 **9.**

In the end, every Sayo that Mirei Mikagura creates becomes the next Mirei Mikagura and creates a new Sayo to lead through CITY. They cycle through like a game on loop and arrive back at the interim or the between worlds or whatever the barely existing space should be called, and with each one, the collective Mirei Mikagura gets more and more and more vexed with it all until something gives.

Naturally, by then, she's almost given up on anything giving. But it's a happy surprise to discover a nice little hole in between dimensions so she can step right out.

Though when she lands in a lab with a red-haired boy gaping at her, she wants to scream.


End file.
